


Muggles and Magic

by Wolken



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Magic, Muggles, Prisoner of War, Psychological Trauma, Trauma, Violence, War Trauma, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 07:52:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolken/pseuds/Wolken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The muggle world has found out about magic and wizards. And instead of accepting the magical society, the muggles started a war which they obviously lost. There are still small groups of muggles that continue their fight against the wizards and witches but most of them are either dead or captured.</p><p>Arthur Weasley, a researcher on muggles and their behaviour has gotten the ideal opportunity to prove that the muggles aren't a real threat and that both worlds can continue to live in peace. One of the captured muggles is assigned to him and his family, he must gather enough information to show the Ministery the truth.</p><p>But at the same time, the muggle is traumatized by everything that has anything to do with magic. And the Ministery has strict rules about muggles in a wizard home.  Can he and his family win the race against the clock to save the remaining muggles?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1 President of the USA

**Author's Note:**

> Well, please let me know if you like this story. Don't be afraid, I won't bite. Both positive and negative comments are appreciated!
> 
> Note about the story: The President of the USA isn't Obama/McCain/McRomney/anyone else. It's just a fictional character and will not be given a name.

This whole chain reaction had been set into action by the president of the United States of America. He had been reelected and in his victory speech, he had suddenly decided while looking at the public in front of him, that he no longer could keep it a secret. The man cleared his throat, took a sip of the water standing on the podium desk and told the truth. ‘’Magic exists!’’ The crowd started cheering, thinking that it was some kind of metaphor for the miraculous victory on his opponent. 

But the president didn’t stop there. ‘’It’s a lie! All of it!’’ The noise quieted down, the people didn’t understand this metaphor. What was the president trying to say? They started whispering with their neighbors. Two bodyguards of the president walked up on the stage, the president surely was exhausted by the campaigns and he needed to rest before he would declare more nonsense en public. But the man jerked his arm free of their grip, grabbed the microphone and continued talking. ‘’There are no real elections! It’s all a trick! The Ministry of Magic chooses the new president. It doesn’t matter if you vote or not, it’s set-up!’’ the whispers in the crowd got louder and a few people started to yell that the president has gone mad, mostly the supporters of his opponent.

His bodyguards practically dragged him off stage, but the president kept telling, or more like yelling, the truth. ‘’Wizards and witches exist! They can do magic and fly on broomsticks! There are no real governments! It’s all a l…’’ at that moment, someone jerked the microphone out of the presidents hand to stop him and he got led off stage. 

The public on the other hand was convinced that the wrong man had been elected, such a madman couldn’t lead the country! Whispering changed into rumors and into shouting. The opponent came on stage and asked the people to remain calm but the effort was futile. Supporters of either candidate started fighting. Some of them sure that the country was going to be destroyed by this madman, other convinced that the man just needed some rest. The fighting crowd was so busy with each other that they didn’t noticed the dark night sky being filled with owls, flying into every possible direction.

In less than a half hour, the whole news was about the incident. Time on time, they showed the clip of the president rattling about magic and wizards and the clip with the fighting crowd. The police had great difficulties to regain order, even the mounted police didn’t make much progress. Why did no one ever noticed this before? The president already had served for four years and never he had done anything like this. But in an interview with a former president, he too declared that the magical world was true. The chaos was complete. 

Not even a few hours later, Europe was fully awake and one by one presidents, premiers, kings, queens and ministers declared that they all knew about this. 

It wasn’t just the muggle world where panic had stricken, also the magical world was in uproar. It has never been this busy and crowded at the Ministry of Magic. People race in and out of rooms, appear and disappear in the chimneys and flying letters, flying letters everywhere. You needed to keep your head down or they will get tangled in long hair or fly straight into your mouth or eye. But that wasn’t the worst and neither was the crowded hallways. The Howlers were the worst. Every few feet you could hear another letter going on a complete rampage to the poor person who opened it. Everyone demanded answers and at the moment no one could give any. The magical society had been kept a secret since the Middle Ages and everyone knew what happened to someone who even had the slightest suspicion about being involved in magic. 

Arthur Weasley paced through the crowded hallways, he needed to get to the conference room. He kept a file full of muggle newspapers and other documents under his left arm while he used his right to push people out of the way. He was a scientist, a researcher on muggles to be exact, promoted on his research about the function of a rubber duck. Arthur knew exactly what to do about this recent chaos. 

In just a matter of seconds after he had entered the conference room, the meeting began. First with Fudge, who tried to get everyone quiet. In the end, he only succeeded by putting the tip of his wand to his throat and again asking for silence, his voice boomed through the room. ‘’The muggles have found out about our existence. What are we going to do about that?’’

Before Arthur could even open his mouth to speak, a small and skinny witch started with her solution. ‘’We send Aurors to erase their memory!’’ she screeched with a high pitched voice that could give you a headache. ‘’Impossible! There a millions and millions on people who know about this and even if we managed to erase everyone’s memories it will still be written on paper. It’s impossible to do something like this!’’ a quite plump wizard replied. 

‘’Order! Order!’’ Fudge demanded from the people in the room but and Auror ignored that and got up from his chair. ‘’We have been hidden from the muggle world for hundreds of years and then that president destroys our cover. I say we must take hard measures to show that they better not mess with us. We must kill that president!’’

That certainly caused more noise, wizards and witches either approving of the plan or not. ‘’We can’t do that! They will only have a reason to hate and fear us!’’ the fat wizard replied with his loud voice. ‘’So what? Let them fear us! Look what they have done to us before we went into hiding, they never liked us and they never will! We must strike back hard!’’ another witch yelled back.

This was going the wrong way, completely the wrong way Arthur thought. With three long steps he was in the middle of the conference room, also pointed his wand to his throat the same way Fudge had done and started speaking. ‘’That’s completely unnecessary! Muggles are no more harmful than an imp or a flobber worm. I have got documents that can proof that wizards and mug…’’ at that moment Arthur was cut off by a woman. 

‘’Harmless?! Harmless! You surely never opened a history book! They want to burn us, drown us, torture us! While a muggle is no match to an adult wizard or witch, they surely are dangerous to our children, pets and homes. What are you suggesting? That we must just trust on their harmlessness?’’ she laughed a high and sarcastic laugh before the other members of the council agreed with her by nodding.

Arthur tried to continue. ‘’The moment muggles realize that we aren’t a threat to them they won’t attack us. We are much like muggles, we almo…’’ the group of people was outrageous at the fact that Arthur dared compare them to muggles. ‘’How dare you! We are nothing like those muggles! We’ve got reason unlike their panicked actions’’ the first witch screeched, her voice breaking in midsentence.

The rest of the meeting continued the same way, Arthur barely had the chance to show that muggles weren’t dangerous and the other members of the council just continued to scare each other with horror stories and coming up with even more horrific solutions. The only luck was that Fudge didn’t want to decide what to do right now. He interrupted the meeting to continue in a few days.

But there would have been a better solution if the decision had done that day. In the next few days, both the magical world and the muggle world, accusing the other world from all kinds of things. The muggle papers reported about the costs of the Ministry of Magic and that they paid taxes for that ministry, total nonsense of course the wizards and witches paid taxes themselves to pay for their own ministry but that wasn’t something that the muggles wanted to hear. Their childhoods had been full of fairytales in which witches were the bad guys and tried to kill you. They were compared to wolves, always hungry for blood and power.

Daily there were reports about attacks on muggles by wizards, brutal murders and robberies. That too wasn’t true, wizards didn’t need anything of the muggle world that they couldn’t get in their own. People boiled in kettles to mix potions, tough no one had direct proof of it. But it scared the muggle community and they started to fight back. 

In the beginning, every cat that walked on the street was killed. Everyone knew because of the stories that cats were the pets of witches. Next were dogs that looked like wolves, husky’s, malamutes, Saarlooswolfdogs. If wizards and witches existed, why not werewolves? 

Next were people, no one was safe and everyone suspected. An old widow that lived on herself? A witch! A man who had a bit too much luck in his life? A wizard! A child that wanted to show a trick? A witch! People began accusing each other of witchcraft on the most absurd reasons, a neighbor saw another fly on the broomstick in the middle of the night or someone who survived getting hit by a car. All of them had to be wizards and witches!

The massive burnings from the Middle Ages were back, no trials only public lynching’s. In the beginning, it had only been muggles who had been killed, the magical part of society had been smart enough to stay in the background. But one child accidently used magic in public, he fell from a tree and his fall was too slow and calm to be real. 

The village had killed the boy on the spot. This had of course enraged his parents who went on a full rampage, destroying the whole village and burning it down to the last house. A few villagers had managed to escape and alarm the outside world. 

The president had his military powers returned after a few days in a mental hospital because they had thought he had gone mad. The president declared war on everyone who had anything to do with magic. This would proof to be an even bloodier war than the war on terrorism. 

That day Fudge demanded everyone of the council to come back. Arthur knew that he could only try to get Fudge to reason if he could proof that muggles weren’t a treat. But the Daily Prophet had made that job near to impossible, reporting everything and over-coloring every incident, even the ones that were worse enough on their own.

Fudge’s face had turned an angry red color. ‘’It’s enough! No more! They have declared war on us and we will not let anymore of our people die!’’ this statement was greeted by a cheering of the council. ‘’Every wizard and witch has the right and duty to fight back against those muggles!’’ he spat out the last word like it was some kind of illness. ‘’Children from the age of 5 are from this moment allowed to use magic with a wand and their parents are allowed to teach them the basic of defense against those murderers. Children from school age are now to follow mandatory special muggle defense classes to teach them how to defend themselves. The laws about using magic in front of a muggle are from now on abolished until further notice.’’ 

Arthur protested, it was just outright dangerous to let such young children use wands and magic, they didn’t know their powers and could hurt everyone, including themselves, on accident. But his protest disappeared in the tumult around him.

‘’The use of the three Unforgivable Curses at muggles is permitted! We must stop them as soon as possible! All Aurors are to drive the muggles back by any means and methods’’ Fudge declared, his chest pumped up, feeling obviously proud about himself.

‘’No!’’ Arthur shouted. This was completely the wrong solution, it would end in a bloody war with only losers and no victors. It would become a complete massacre! The muggles would fight back with every weapons they could find until the bitter end.


	2. Filling in the papers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur thinks about saving a muggle from Azkaban

Four months later

It was still dark outside but Arthur was already sitting at the kitchen tables, going through newspapers. Old muggle newspapers because it had been weeks ago since the last ones were printed. There wasn’t a company open, everything had shut down even the governments of the muggles. Cities abandoned, whole neighborhoods empty. The remaining muggles were smart enough to stay hidden in forests in the middle of nowhere. But still every day more and more of them were found and executed on the spot. Just a few of them weren’t killed immediately. But their fate was worse than the ones that were murdered instantly. 

Hogwarts had changed since Arthur had lived and learned there. The last headmaster had retired and the new one certainly had never liked muggles in the beginning. The subject Muggle studies had been deserted a long time ago but suddenly it had revived because of the recent troubles with the muggles. But not in the way that it had always been. It wasn’t a subject about how muggles lived but more how to take care of muggles that stood in your way and how to find them.

Arthur wasn’t the only parent who got his children off school, many others did the same even though it could result in a trial before the court for sympathizing with the enemy, the muggles. Arthur didn’t know what happened to muggles that were held captive on Hogwarts but it couldn’t be too good. The Daily Prophet talked about educational purposes to teach the children how they should defend their selves but there wasn’t talked about the specifics. 

But if it was the same as what happened at the Ministry, Arthur pitied them. Any muggle that was proven to be involved in rebel actions or in the war were used by Aurors to test their skills on. To teach young Aurors what to do in case of a rebelling prisoner or a prisoner outbreak. Not that there was a real chance of an outbreak, it seemed that they just wanted revenge for the killed wizards and witches in the war. 

Arthur’s glaze moved from the paper to the corner of the table to a pile of papers. He had been thinking about this for a while now. The war was won by the magical society and there were barely any muggles left but he was still interested in them. Observing them in their own city and with their normal behavior was impossible even without the war. Arthur was getting to old for things like he had done when documenting about the function of a rubber duck.

For weeks and weeks he had magically tracked every rubber duck that he could find and hid in bushes close to the houses to follow every move of the muggles inside. It was obvious that the muggles were very attached to their rubber ducks because every time Arthur had found them with the yellow thing, they started screaming at him and throwing strange bottles at him through the window. Some even yelled that they were going to call the police, something similar to Aurors Arthur had heard. 

No he had to find another way. Arthur reached over and grabbed the pile and a quill. The first few questions were easy, who he was, where he lived and how old he was. The next few were more difficult. Why did he think he could handle a muggle, where would he keep the muggle for they couldn’t have escaped muggles running around the towns?

Arthur penned down that he had worked as an Auror for two years, not telling why he stopped. He also wrote that he had a lot of experience with muggles, having a job at the Ministry as a muggle expert for at least a decade. That was the answer for the first difficult question. The second one he needed more time but in the end he just wrote that the muggle would stay at his house, protective spells around the house to keep the muggle from escaping.

Arthur couldn’t imagine the muggle wanting to escape. If the muggle was just as curious about magic as he was about them, he was sure they would just get along fine. The muggle might even be glad he was safe from the less friendly wizards and dangers. 

About two hours later he was done filling in the papers, most of them completely useless questions according to him. Putting the papers in an envelope he walked towards the window to look for one of the family’s owls. Pigwigeon was the only one there, staring at him with his enormous eyes. 

Arthur suddenly wasn’t so sure about sending the papers by owl, it wasn’t that he didn’t like Pigwigeon but it was just… That owl was something beyond stupid, it was always a miracle if he entered the house without breaking at least two things. Arthur finally decided to just take the papers with him to work so that he could immediately hand them to the man responsible.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘’Arthur are you sure you would want to take on this kind of responsibility?’’ the skinny wizard asked him, looking suspiciously at the envelope that Arthur had pushed into his hands. Arthur nodded slightly irritated, why couldn’t the man just accept his request? He had barely heard of any others who’s requests for a muggle got denied.

‘’A muggle even though captured is still dangerous Arthur. He can be dangerous to your kids’’ the man continued. ‘’I don’t know if you even got the right certificates to ke…’’ Arthur took another messy pile of papers out of the bag and put it on the envelope in the man’s hands. ‘’That’s the Auror certificate of mine, that’s my work about muggle behavior and that’s my N.E.W.T certificate’’ the last one had excellent grades for Muggle studies and for Defense against the Dark Arts. 

But the skinny wizard again shook his head. Arthur got irritated, wanting to ask why his request was denied before it was even considered. But at that moment he heard footsteps closing in on them. Familiar footsteps. Before he had even turned around he already knew who it was, Malfoy. Lucius Malfoy to be exact. ‘’Are there any problems, Marius?’’ 

Arthur thought about taking the papers with him and leaving, he didn’t want to spend a minute longer in Lucius presence. But the man with the long blonde hair had already opened the envelope in Marius hands. Arthur opened his mouth to protest but Lucius was quicker. ‘’A request for a muggle?’’ his eyebrows rose. A small smile appeared at the corners of his mouth, clearly amused by it.

‘’Yes, I was just about to tell him his request was denied’’ Marius quickly said, turning to Arthur and glaring at him. Lucius was respected, or a better word for it ‘feared’, at the Minstry. Marius certainly didn’t want to get in trouble with him.

‘’No, accept his request’’ Lucius said while browsing through the pages, angering Arthur more and more. He then looked up from the papers, his smile becoming wider and looking at Arthur. ‘’Accept his request. I would love to see Arthur handle a muggle. You said that they were equal to us, right?’’ His bright white teeth showed through his smile, grinning slightly. ‘’It isn’t like the Weasley’s could afford a house elf. So let them have a muggle, cheaper and more to their… standing’’ 

Arthur was close to exploding by now, his face going as red as his hair, but he kept his mouth shut his lips forming a thin line. ‘’Don’t worry Arthur, if he gets too difficult you just need to ask me to take care of it’’ Malfoy grinned before pushing the papers back in Marius’ hands and leaving, his cloak waving in the movement of his walking.

Arthur glared at him as he saw Lucius leaving the hallway. Marius sighed deeply and opened the door to his office behind him. ‘’Arthur, come in. You first need to work through a few more papers and documents.’’

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was certainly a lot more than just a few more papers and documents. For the rest of the day Arthur was busy with filling in every question on the parchment. Questions about insurance if something happened to him, questions about if he wanted to change his will and a complete relinquish on any claims on the Ministry. Arthur had frowned and Marius had explained him bored that there weren’t any specific muggle documents so they used the standard ones for dangerous animals like dragons.

In the evening Arthur was out again, his hand hurting of the many writing. The next task would prove to be even harder he thought when going back to his home. He had to tell his family and especially his wife about his decision to take a muggle into their home.

At the beginning of the evening meal, Arthur had to ask for their attention three times before they finally listened. It had been even worse when Bill and Percy still lived at home, then it was almost impossible to get their attention. ‘’I’ve decided something that’s important for everyone of us here’’ Arthur began, getting the attention of his sons and daughter. His wife stopped conducting the pans and cutlery to the table, the objects floating in midair. 

‘’I’ve decided that we will take a muggle into our home’’ Arthur said, feeling relieved now he had finally said it. After three or four seconds the flood of questions came. ‘’Why dad?’’ was the first question of his daughter. ‘’Is he going to be a house elf?’’ Ron’s question sounded half a second later. ‘’Awesome!’’ the twins said simultaneously, already clearly thinking of any experiments on them like they had tried before on the rest of their family.

But before Arthur could answer any of their questions, his wife had regained full consciousness. The pans and utensils fell on the floor. ‘’Arthur Weasley!’’ her voice boomed through the dining room, silencing everyone. Arthur turned his head to her slowly, knowing that he had made a mistake by not informing her earlier or even asking her opinion about the matter. ‘’Kitchen, now!’’ her voice was softer but a lot colder and icier.

‘’You didn’t even ask me anything! You can’t just take a muggle into this house without even informing me!’’ Molly shouted at him after slamming the door behind them. Not that it mattered much, she yelled that loud that it could even be heard outside of the house. ‘’But honey, otherwise the muggle will end up in Azka…’’ before he was interrupted. ‘’I don’t care where the muggle will end up! Not in my house!’’

Molly had respected her man’s obsession about muggles but that went as far as the doorstep. No muggles in her home, especially not after the war. Why should she allow an enemy to enter her house? It was just too dangerous! ‘’You will go right back to the Ministry that you have changed your mind about it! No muggle here!’’

Arthur bit on his tongue. ‘’I can’t! Lucius Malfoy knows about it’’ That was enough to silence Molly for a moment. The Weasleys have been made fun of by the Malfoys for as long as the families existed. She didn’t want to lose face against them. Molly didn’t reply but turned around and marched back into the dining room, sitting down in her chair and putting food on her plate.

Her children stared at her, curious about the outcome. Would there be a muggle in their home or not? Their father soon too returned to the dining room, starting to eat. Molly looked up for a moment. ‘’Eat your vegetables Ron!’’ she said before resuming her own dinner.

The rest of the meal was in silence, all in their own thoughts about it. It was clear that Molly didn’t want to hear any more questions about it, or anything else for that matter.


	3. House elves and fudge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tristan goes to Arthurs house. There he meets house elves and Sirius Blacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning!  
> There are bits of violence and bullying in this chapter.

He was surprised. Surprised that he was still alive and breathing. Tristan had made the mistake of attacking a scholar at Hogwarts. It hadn’t been a crucio that had driven him over the edge an neither had it been a sectum sempra. Just a simple levitating spell. Muggles were allowed to walk in the gardens in the middle of the school under the supervision of experienced teachers. It was a rule of the Ministry, it would keep them sane and healthy. As sane and healthy as the muggles could be held while they were being used as guinea pigs by the students. 

A few of the students were careful when they had to practice spells but it could still go horribly wrong. And most of the students, especially the ones with the green and silver ties, were just plain cruel. The ones with the blue and silver where the ones where you had the least risk of getting turned into something like a rat or a frog. But today it had neither been a green nor a blue who had pushed him over the edge. Three reds had corned him in the yard, pointing their wands at him. His fingers curled up into his hand palms, knowing that it wouldn’t help much, they didn’t even need to come close to him, but he refused to just stand there and do nothing. 

The three reds moved closer, forming half a circle. The one on the right stepped forward while waving the wand and uttering a curse. ‘’Wingardium Leviosa!’’ the next moment, Tristan was above the ground, his stomach turning in panic and his limbs flailed, hoping to regain the solid ground beneath him. He was getting a bit sick as he was thrown up in the air, falling until he almost made contact with the ground before going up again. 

Then suddenly, the spell stopped and Tistan crashed down into the ground hard, nose first. He could already feel trickles of blood dripping on the grass. He didn’t move, hoping that they had had enough and would leave. But it seemed that today he wasn’t in any luck. The leader of the group walked towards him, crouching down and poking him, like children did when finding a dead bird, not sure if it’s dead or just playing dead. 

With an angry growl, Tristan turned and slammed his fist into the jaw of the wizard. The other was knocked down on the ground and Tristan was soon near him, landing punches everywhere he could. He didn’t notice how it had became quiet around them. The wand had broken in the fall and for once, the power of muggle and wizard were equal. And soon Tristan was on the winning hand of the fight. That was until he felt a burning pain between his shoulder blades, knocking him away from the wizard. 

The pain was familiar. It either meant that you were a test subject for the class Defense against the Dark Arts or that you really pissed off some people. The spell wasn’t allowed for students to use outside of the classroom and they barely did use it outside because of the punishment if someone found out.

He heard someone screaming, his vision got blurry of the pain. His body spasmed and after what seemed like an eternity, the pain stopped. Tristan was too tired to move so he just stayed down on the ground. A rough hand hauled him back on his feet and dragged him away through the hallways. At that moment Tristan passed out.

He woke up in one of the cells in the dungeons. Tristan realized that he had been the one screaming. He was sure that he was going to be killed. The other people, or muggles as the wizards called them, only knew it as the green light and it was said that it could kill you instantly.

The ones that got permanently injured or went mad were taken away and they never returned. This probably would become his fate too. So when a group of wizards entered the dungeons and stood before his cell, Tristan was ready for them. He wouldn’t go down without a fight. But they didn’t open the cell door, they just stood there. 

A man with long blond hair nodded after a while. ‘’He would be perfect for those Weasley’s’’ That man left and a other fired a spell at Tristan, making him lose consciousness again.

The next time that Tristan woke up, he noticed the strange ceiling above him. It was made out of wood. But Hogwarts ceilings were always made out of solid stone, it was a castle so it wasn’t really surprising. The change from grey stones to brown wood was a moment of confusion.

The next thing were the blankets on top of him and the bed beneath him. Tristan blinked a few times, trying to figure out where he was exactly. Was he dead and in heaven? Possibly. But why was heaven made out of wood and brownish blankets?

Before he could figure out if he was dead or alive and where he was, a ugly monster with enormous eyes and ears appeared above him, sitting on his chest, just two inches away from his face. Tristan screamed the lungs out of his body and the creature above him did exactly the same thing, scrambling away from the bed. Tristan shot up, grabbing the blanket and keeping the fabric close to his body, like some kind of shield.

The monster was smaller than he had originally thought, wearing dirty cloths and standing a few feet away from him. Tristan just stared back at him, trying to figure out what it was. A loud bang and an even more ugly creature appeared, seemingly of the same kind as the first one. ‘’Filthy muggle’’ the second one muttered while glaring daggers at Tristan.

Tristan was too shocked at his new surroundings to even notice the creature’s insult. He wasn’t dead and he wasn’t at Hogwarts anymore. But where was he then? Still somewhere at a magical house because of those strange creatures.

At the conclusion that he was still at a house of a wizard or with, he jumped up, throwing the blankets off and pacing towards the window. The two creatures flinched at the sudden movement but they recovered quickly. ‘’Sit back down’’ the grumpy one growled. Tristan ignored him and opened the old window, crouching in the windowsill, looking down. The ugliest of the two disappeared with a even loud bang as he had entered the room.

The creature that had almost given him a heart attack started squeaking. ‘’No, don’t do that!’’ Tristan stared down from the window. It was really high, if he was lucky enough he wouldn’t break both of his legs if he jumped. But a sprained ankle seemed impossible to avoid. But at least he would be outside of the house. The moment that he decided to actually jumped, the door of the room was slammed open.  
It had gone really quickly from that evening at the dinner table. Molly had in the end allowed Arthur to take a muggle into the house, mostly because she didn’t want to lose face in front of the Malfoys. It wasn’t really hard to convince the kids, though Arthur had great troubles in trying to convince the twins not to experiment on the muggle.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not even two weeks later, Arthur was called at Marius office. Most of the muggles weren’t suitable because they would continue trying to murder any wizard around them or because they had too valuable information about where the rebels were hiding.

But they had found one at Hogwarts. Arthur hesitated in the beginning, a muggle who already had bad experiences with wizards wasn’t the most ideal start but after the war there wasn’t a single muggle left who didn’t hate wizards. Or so Marius brought as an argument against Arthurs objection. That was true and the only other option was to wait for an additional six months.

A few Aurors would pick the muggle up at Hogwarts and bring him to Arthurs home. The whole day the family had been busy with preparing. Even a old friend of Arthur had showed up, Sirius Blacks. Well, old friend? More like a friend of a friend and send by James Potter. Sirius was experienced in dealing with the edges of the magical world, especially the dangerous ones. 

Sirius had two house elves with him, Kreacher and Dobby. The worst thing the muggle could see when waking up was to see a wizard so they could better let house elves keep an eye on him and to warn them when he woke up. Muggles were always completely sedated just in case they would try to run. 

Molly had made mince pies and fudge, hoping to bribe the muggle. Though Arthur didn’t know for what, either Molly was scared that the muggle would destroy the house or because she wanted to be liked by their newest housemate.

While talking with Sirius about muggles and how to take care of them, it became clear that Sirius had more experience in dealing with hippogriffs and dragons. He too seemed to think that muggles were a dangerous type of animal, like most of the wizards. Like muggles were like Bowtruckles, harmless when they are young but without the right protection they could kill you when old enough.

With a loud bang Kreacher returned after being send upstairs by Sirius to check on Dobby and the muggle. ‘’The muggle is awake and at the moment he’s trying to jump out of the window’’ Kreacher had never made it a secret that he didn’t like muggles, so it was just by the nature of house elves that he hadn’t encourage the muggle yet to jump out of the window instead of informing them about it.

Sirius jumped up, knocking over his chair and the can of Butterbeer before running up the stairs, quickly followed by Arthur. Sirius slammed open the door, was by the muggle in an instant and dragged him back inside. The muggle indeed had been on the edge of jumping out of the window, a jump he wouldn’t have survived.

The muggle fought back against Sirius, trying to get out from his grip, scratching, biting, punching and kicking. Arthur stood in the doorframe, frozen. Sirius fought back, used to taking care of dangerous animals. A muggle was no match to him. In no time Sirius had him on the ground on his stomach, his arms twisted on his back. 

Arthur could hear them both panting, neither wanting to give up. Sirius held both of the muggles hands in one hand and wiped some sweat of his forehead. It was then when Arthur noticed that the muggle was still young, around the age of Fred and George. Probably the only muggle that they could give without risking to lose any information. 

‘’Arthur, the window’’ Sirius said after trying a few times to get Arthurs attention. Arthur finally regained his posture, waved with his wand to lock all of the windows to prevent something like this happening again. He was actually quite shocked that the muggle would risk death just to get out.

‘’Okey, listen very carefully, I’m going to release you and then you are going to stand up very slowly. Don’t try any funny things’’ Sirius warned the muggle before releasing him and taking a few steps back, having his wand in handsreach.

The muggle got up, glaring at both Sirius and Arthur. ‘’Well, you surely got yourself quite the project’’ Sirius grinned at Arthur. ‘’Couldn’t you just go for a cat or another owl?’’ Arthur ignored him, put his wand away. ‘’What’s your name?’’ he asked the muggle. Till so far he hadn’t got any papers about him, he barely knew anything just that he had spend two months at Hogwarts after being captured.

When the muggle didn’t reply and just glared at him, Arthur said his own name first. ‘’You won’t have to go back to Hogwarts anymore’’ he insured him. Worse and worse rumors about the treatment of muggles at Hogwarts had gone round. That they were tortured and that the students practiced on them to learn their spells. And Arthur knew first hand that an inexperienced witch or wizard could do great harm when they didn’t master a spell yet. 

‘’Tristan’’ the muggle replied after waiting a while. ‘’My name is Tristan’’


	4. Meeting the twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tristan meets the twins and Ron. But the meeting doesn't go exactly as the Weasley's had planned to.

Well, that surely wasn’t a success. Other than his name, the muggle hadn’t said much. Sirius had left the house with the house elves not long after his first encounter with the muggle. He had wished Arthur a lot of luck and was willing to offer his expertise with dangerous magical creatures if needed. 

The windows were still locked with a spell, preventing him to try to jump out of the window. Something had happened that had driven him so far that he would make him dare to make a death leap from the second floor. And even though Arthur didn’t want to believe those rumors about Hogwarts, he slowly was beginning to release that they could be true. 

He occasionally checked if the muggle was still in the room. After their brief encounter, Arthur had left him alone. The teen had gone to sleep almost immediately after that but when Arthur accidently made too much noise when walking through the hallway, Tristan had awoken his whole body tensing up.

This was not what Arthur had been expecting. Sure, a traumatized muggle because of the war and he did believe that he wouldn’t have been treated too nice in Azkaban and at Hogwarts. But it seemed that this time Arthur had bargained for too much than he could handle.

It was clear that Tristan was hungry but he didn’t dare to touch the mince pies and fudge made by Molly and the pumpkin juice in a goblet on the nightstand. It actually had left Molly quite insulted, she had disappeared into the kitchen and she hadn’t come out for at least a hour or two.

Judging by the smells coming from the kitchen, she was still determined to proof the muggle otherwise, trying recipes from her great-great-grandmother. Arthur doubted that it was because Tristan didn’t like the food, but he didn’t want to be the one to break the truth to Molly.

If he had to explain his thoughts about the cause why Tristan wasn’t eating, Molly would probably try to convince Arthur that it was just too much than the family could take and that he had to give the muggle to the Ministry or send him back to Azkaban, as he was send away from Hogwarts for good. It was already difficult to manage such a large household, it had cost Arthur a lot of reasoning to convince Molly and the only reason why she finally said yes was because of the Malfoys.

Arthur heard noise upstairs. He sighed deeply, put the muggle newspaper down which was read over maybe for a dozen times, the ink of the letters starting to fade. Fred and George didn’t get the point of leaving the muggle alone, they were constantly trying to get into the room. Ginny hadn’t even paid attention and didn’t bother to find out who the new one was in their household. Ron was too busy with catching up with schoolwork, he was terribly behind since Arthur had taken them off school. But sending them back was worse so after a long and boring sermon about how important schoolwork was, Arthur had send him up to learn the spells in those books.

But before Arthur was by the staircase, the noise was gone. Maybe he had just imagined it? He turned around after glancing at the top of the stairs for a moment. Then he walked back, going to the kitchen. 

Molly’s face was red with effort, directing every spoon and ingredient to the correct pan or bowl. Arthur had seen her only like this once before, just before the wedding of their son Bill. She had had to cook for an enormous group of people and had been busy for at least three days straight with making lists, finding the ingredients, cooking it and making sure no one ate before the wedding and that nothing burned. 

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Tristans eyes flew open the moment he heard some sound at the door. He saw the lock in the door moving slightly as someone was fumbling with it at the other side of the door. Every hour someone tried to get into this room, sometimes more than just once an hour and every single time, the persons was chased away by the man who had prevented him to jump out of the window. Or more like, the person who had stood frozen in the door opening when he saw Tristan in the window frame. The other man with the dark long hair had practically dragged him away, but Tristan hadn’t heard his voice anymore.

Though they had tried at least ten times to get in, every attempt of them was stopped in time. But it still made Tristan heart stop every single time he heard noises at the door. He could only hope that they were chased away by the man again.

Even when taking these attempts of breaking in into account, this was the best sleep Tristan had had in a long time. A bed, blankets, a warm room. And best of all, alone. Since the war had broken out, he had had barely a moment alone. Always people around him, panicking, crying, screaming. 

He shortly glanced at the food standing on the nightstand. He couldn’t believe it, it seemed too good to be true. There had to be some kind of trick as these wizards and witches always had hidden somewhere. There could either be poison or some kind of potion in both the food and the drink. And Tristan wasn’t going to take the chance.

The fumbling at the door took longer than previous times, Tristan was starting to worry, where was the man? Then a short click made him aware of the fact that the door was open now. His heart dropped, his eyes staring at the door. The last time he had been that scared was when he was a kid.

Looking under the bed with a flashlight before going to bed, making a leap just to make sure the monsters under the bed couldn’t grab him. Pulling the blankets up to his chin. The dark had always been something really threatening for a child, you couldn’t see what was going on. Closets, especially if mom forgot to close it before sending you to bed, could frightening you to death. The waving curtains for a open window, a door screeching in the wind. 

But even then he knew that monsters weren’t real, or at least he had thought so. Now, it was obvious that they were real and not too far away from him. A screeching door now didn’t mean that it was just the wind, it actually meant that it something or someone was coming to torture him. 

Tristan got out of bed, though the blankets gave him a false sense of security, he knew that he had a better chance when standing on his legs. His hands curled into fists, trying to brace himself for whatever would come through that door. 

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Fred and George were the problem at the moment, they continued trying to break into the room, wanting to know who the muggle was. And probably also because they wanted to test whatever they had made on him. Ron had once made the mistake of accepting some candy of his brothers and it had left him throwing up for two hours straight. 

The twins had called it a grand success but their initial euphoria had soon been tempered by a furious Molly who had to deal with Ron. The two had been made to do all of Rons chores for the next month and were forbidden to make any new creations for the next three months. When Molly had caught them while they were brewing something that surely wasn’t in the potions book, a additional two weeks of chores and the removal of all of their potions brewing material for a whole month was added.

So Arthur had good reasons why he kept his sons away from Tristan, just too dangerous. He probably already had enough bad experiences with magic and Arthur didn’t want to add any more problems and trauma’s. Tristan would first have to get used to magic around the house in normal life, he would learn that it could also be used for good things and not only bad.

Only then could Arthur gather enough information about normal muggle life and maybe convince the Ministry of Magic to make more human rules in handling muggles. He wasn’t hoping for much more since the muggle community had been destroyed and the wizards and witches wanted revenge for the war and casualties. But it was the least he could do, feeling shame and guilt because of what the magical community had done to the muggles. He could at least save one of them.

Ginny apparently was also in the kitchen, helping Molly and at the same time learning how to make sure that the knives wouldn’t turn against you while you were busy chopping up the vegetables.

Arthur counted the plates on the tables. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. ‘’Is Percy visiting?’’ he asked, he hadn’t seen him yet. But it could be expected, Percy also worked at the Ministry and Arthur knew that he didn’t really like muggles and probably would try to talk the idea out of his fathers head. Arthur wasn’t looking forward to that discussion with Percy.

Molly looked up confused from the stove. ‘’What do you mean?’’ she said, having to divide her attention between Arthur and the meat in the pan. Arthur pointed at the table. ‘’Seven plates’’ Molly sighed and turned back to the now burning meat. ‘’Seven plates. You, me, the twins, Ron, Ginny and Tristan’’ she said like it was obvious.

Arthur hesitated a moment before replying. ‘’Honey, I don’t think it’s wise that Tristan is eating with us already.’’ He hoped that she would get it and not push the matter. But that wasn’t Molly, she always insisted on the whole family eating together and Tristan was added to the household from this day on. ‘’What do you mean, he’s not eating with us?’’ she asked irritated, extinguishing the fire beneath the pan. 

‘’He’s still really tired’’ Arthur postponed the real reason. ‘’And he needs to sleep. And ehm… he probably doesn’t want to say any magic at all for the next few days’’ His voice had gotten softer as he proceeded talking. Molly had whipped around at the last scentence. ‘’No magic? How do you think I’m going to run this household for the next few days without magic, Arthur Weasley? That’s right, it’s near to impossible! If he lives in a magical household, he will just have to get used to it’’

Before Arthur could respond to that, a loud screaming and things falling on the floor was coming from upstairs. Arthur apparated to Tristans door in just half a second.

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It took a while before the door opened, first there was whispering and hushed talking. Tristans chest heaved up and down, not completely ready for what would come through that door. It could be a wizard or witch, a monster or that creepy thing what he had seen earlier today. But the last one had just appeared in this room. A bit worried Tristan looked around to make sure that there weren’t any big ears visible in the room.

Then the door was finally opened and three red headed persons sneaked inside, closing the door behind them. ‘’I told you the muggle was here, otherwise he would haven’t been this persistent to keep us away from here’’ one said to his exact look alike. Tristan wasn’t sure if it was a magical trick or that they really were twins. His face was set in a determined glare.

The copy moved forwards, a grin on his face. ‘’Nice to meet you, muggle’’ he said, while keeping his hand out. Tristan looked suspiciously at the hand, why were they acting so strangely? There was something wrong, that was for sure. The hand was still hanging in the air but Tristan made no attempt to shake it. The ginger slowly lowered his hand. 

There was an awkward silence for a moment before the first one started talking again. ‘’Well, I’m Fred, that’s George and that’s our little brother Ron. The man you have already met is our father’’ Tristan still didn’t reply and looked at the three of them, actually wanting them to leave him alone. ‘’Is he deaf?’’ The one that was called George asked Fred softly while leaning towards his brother. 

‘’No, I don’t think so. That book of dad we got said that muggles greet each other differently. ‘’ And after whispering that to his brother, Fred did a big step forwards to Tristan, spreading his arms widely. Tristan was already with his back against the wall and now the wizard closed in on him rapidly, blocking every way out with his arms. Tristan balled his fists and hit him square in the face. 

The results were instant, Fred backed off, clutching his bleeding nose and making muffled sounds. His twin had screamed in anger about what Tristan had done and the third one also didn’t seem to happy. ‘’I wah jus’ t’ying to we nice’’ Fred said in pain. 

It seemed like the other two were about to turn against Tristan but before that could happen, a flash and the man was back and he was furious!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone didn't get what Fred was trying to do: he was trying to hug Tristan.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First flamer ever! New achievement!  
> Well, I'm going to answer those questions:  
> \- Centaurs/Werewolves/Goblins aren't dead in the HP books and or films. Why? Because the wizards are too lazy to kill them. Maybe they wouldn't win against the centaurs&werewolves (although wizards are in greater numbers) but they would certainly win against goblins. Muggles same story, though wizards can die because of wounds, they have a great advantage against them. It's like fighting guns with swords.  
> And why use bombs if wizards live among muggles? It may kill some wizards but it will certainly kill more muggles because there are also houses like Grimmauld place.
> 
> \- Arthur Weasley isn't trying to get wizards to treat muggles as equals, he realises that the situation has escalated too much for that. But he's trying to at least get some laws and rights to protect them by proving the Ministry that he's right.
> 
> Well, now that's cleared out, have fun reading. It isn't the best chapter I've written but at least it's something. Was very busy with exams.

Arthur was indeed furious, he had specifically forbidden them to enter this room. The twins always had been getting into mischief and sometimes even Arthur found it funny to hear what they had done, it was always original. But this time it wasn’t something as bewitching the fireplace. And now they had even involved Ron into their bad behavior. 

‘’Out, I’ll talk to you three later’’ he said, pointing at the door. There were a few drops of Freds blood on the floor but he would do just fine, it wasn’t anything serious. The mug with pumpkin juice was knocked over and the liquid spilled over the floor. The plate with the fudge and mince pieces was shattered and the pieces lay across the floor. 

Arthur walked to the door, he would take care of the mess later. Just as he was about to close the door, he looked at Tristan opening his mouth to say something, then changing his mind and walking out of the room.

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In the next few days, it had gotten a bit better between Tristan and the family. He now actually came down for breakfast and dinner. He hadn’t spoken a lot to anyone and still looked at anything magical with an suspicious glare but at least it had stayed with one attempt to knock someone out.

One evening, the family was having dinner. Arthur sitting at the head of the table, to the left of him Fred, George and Ginny, to his right Molly, Ron and Tristan. After these few days, Arthur thought that Tristan probably had gotten used to things like the clock which was different from any muggle clock, as it couldn’t tell you the time but it many other useful things, and jumping chocolate frogs. Till now, Arthur prevented having to use magic around Tristan, he had even cleaned up the shards of the plate by hand. 

But even though Arthur didn’t mind not using magic for those brief moments, Molly certainly did got annoyed by it. If Tristan was around, she couldn’t just accio something or perform any other spells. And because she was running the household she did need those spells to keep everything up and running. Arthur was at the Ministry for most of the day so he didn’t have to deal with the troubles she was having.

Molly had talked about it to Arthur, that it was just impossible to do everything she normally did without the help of spells. She understood and respected Tristans problems but she was running out of patience. So they had agreed on getting Tristan used to every day spells. Arthur hoped that he wouldn’t freak out, it was just impossible to keep a muggle around the house if he was afraid of anything that involved magic. If that was the case, Arthur had to think of a plan B and anything that he could think of was sending Tristan away. 

‘’Mom, can you pass me the salt?’’ Ron asked Molly. It was about five minutes after they had begun their dinner and as they had agreed on, Ron would ask for the salt that was still in one of the kitchen cabins. So that it wouldn’t come as a total surprise for Tristan if Molly grabbed her wand .

Arthur slowed down eating, hoping for a good outcome of this little test. He hadn’t used any magic around Tristan yet and he hadn’t read anything in the file. He hadn’t actually read anything interesting at all, it was just three or four pages thick and mostly consisted out of the dates and times when he had attended a class at Hogwarts. 

Molly picked up her wand and pronounced the spell. The cabin door opened and a small saltcellar was hanging there in the air, moving towards Molly’s hand. Arthur kept looking at Tristan for any reaction.

He too had slowed down eating, eyeing the wand that Molly had picked up and then the flying saltcellar. But when Molly passed the thing to Ron and put the wand back down on the table, Tristan resumed his dinner like nothing had happened.

That was a huge relief for Arthur. Not trusting magic, they could work on that, that wasn’t such a big problem. Real fear and panic was much harder and he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to fix that. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tristan noticed it when the wife of the man, if he was correct her name was Dolly or something like that, picked up the wand laying on the table. Tristan had noticed the twig since the start of dinner, normally there weren’t any wands at the table but now it was so obvious to see, just two inches away from her plate that he couldn’t have missed it.

His heart rate sped up a bit when he saw her picking it up but she didn’t point it at him and in the months at Hogwarts he had learned that as long as that wasn’t the case, he was safe. A mere saltcellar was the subject of magic this time, flying through the air. Then Dolly put the twig down again, resuming her dinner. Soon Tristans heart also regained his regular pace.

He had never been really afraid of anything but the past few months had learned him otherwise. Why touch the stove if you get burned every single time? The two times that he had attacked a wizard, both here and at Hogwarts, had both been out of fear.

At Hogwarts because he wanted to be left alone, he was sick of being their toy. He couldn’t walk away because then they would have stopped him, he couldn’t ignore them, that would be quite hard if you were being thrown up and down in the air. So there was only one option left to get them to leave him alone.

The second time the wizard had just acted too rash, to stupid. Only hours after the incident Tristan had realized that he hadn’t tried to do anything against him, just to give him a hug. But it wasn’t his own fault, Tristan thought. The wizard should have thought before doing something like that, first he broke into the room, whispering with his brothers before jumping at Tristan. 

It seemed that the three had learned from that first encounter, they hadn’t tried again but the twins still seemed interested and curious. The girl just ignored him, she hadn’t said a word to Tristan in these days. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Arthur was glad that this test had turned out so well. He figured he could take another step a few minutes later. ‘’So Tristan, how do you like it here so far?’’ A relative safe question, not digging in any painful subjects or as superficial as a question if he liked the food. 

Still it took Tristan a few moments before he reacted. ‘’It’s good’’ That was the extend of the reply that Arthur got. Three words. Seemed like it wasn’t the great plan as he thought it would be. It was quiet again, only the scraping of cutlery on the plates sounded. ‘’You’ve been eating our food for the last couple of days. But what do muggles eat. What did you eat before the …’’ Before Arthur could finish his sentence, he snapped his own mouth shut. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tristan still stared at his plate, like it was a staring conquest between him and the remainders of the food. He knew what the man was going to say. Before the war. That was exactly what he found so strange about this family. Every wizard he had met till so far loved to rub the victory of them into their face. But the man hadn’t spoken a word about it yet, avoiding the subject. 

While looking at his plate, he could imagine the strange kinds of food he had been eating over the past few months turning into one of the dishes that his mother usually made. She could make anything delicious, pasta, potatoes, rice. Anything, even a simple mac&cheese tasted really good. 

‘’A lot of things, breakfast and lunch mostly consists out of bread. Dinner is out of pasta or potatoes, vegetables and meat. Pork, chicken, cow, turkey or sheep for meat. Vegetables like broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, peas, beans and lettuce’’ It wasn’t that different from the ingredients that wizards used but mostly in odd combinations and with some unknown ingredients. The man actually seemed really interested while the rest of the family continued eating without paying attention. 

After dinner, Tristan went back to his room. He was confused, questioning why exactly he was here. It sure was better than Hogwarts but at the same time it was strange that he was in a wizards family. He hadn’t had the courage yet to ask, fearing that it might be something even worse than Hogwarts. He wanted to enjoy this better life as long as possible without having to worry what would happen to him. 

He knew that if he left the house, out in the open, that he wouldn’t make it very far. Looking back now, his escape attempt was silly and useless. Even if he managed to jump out of the window without breaking his legs, he would have to get to a safe place where no wizard would find him. That mostly consisted out of swamps, the wizards were too lazy to chase after them into those places. Only if they were after someone in particular they would continue to hunt them down into those mud lands, getting their own feet dirty.

And he didn’t know this family, it was obvious that the man was interested in muggles, or that was how they called normal people. But how far would he go, would he hunt down Tristan into the swamps if he tried to escape? Or just let him go. It just made no sense at all that Tristan was here. It confused him and frightened him a bit, but at the same time not knowing what was going to happen , or at least not knowing something bad was going to happen was a good thing. 

Tristan had decided not to push the boundaries to find out the limits of the wizards temper. He had tried that before and it hadn’t ended really well for him. 

Tristan had been at school when he had learned about the president babbling nonsense. The whole school had been talking about it, laughing at the nervous rambling of the man. It had been on every single cell phone, that small video that was about two minutes long. 

Making fun of the man and Americans in general. They had made jokes that not only aliens were coming to conquer the planet but wizards too. What’s next? A frog plotting against the world? Only three weeks later, no one made jokes anymore. No one had to go to school but no one was happy about it. The school had been closed due to the serious risk of becoming a target of attacks. A half of the class Tristan had been in was gone, missing or dead.

Tristans father was also gone, gone without a trace. He wasn’t the only man from the village, a lot of the men had joined some kind of civilian protection group to defend themselves against the wizards. Even people with magic died if you shot them, but they did have advantages. They could appear and disappear whenever they wanted, fly through the air and you didn’t need to see them before they saw you. That all caused the group to fail and the village to be destroyed. Tristan didn’t know where his father was, or his mother for that matter.


	6. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tristan dreams about Hogwarts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Hope you all like it.  
> I will be gone for a while but I will update as soon as possible!  
> Looking forward to reviews!

It looked like a normal classroom, tables, chairs, students, a desk in front of the class. Except for the strange clothing of the students, that there was a cat sitting on the desk and the fact that the pictures in the book were moving. Tristan was standing in the back of the classroom with a few other muggles. Some of them had been here for a long time, others a few days at most. The new ones were anxious, scared. Tristan wasn’t new but also not a ‘’veteran’’ but he had already figured out that this was one of the rare classes where they didn’t have to fear for pain or anything dangerous. Unless it went wrong of course.

The cat jumped of the desk and midway jump, the fur of the animal disappeared changing into green robes. The whispers of the cat shrunk and shrunk until the face of the cat had been transferred in that of a woman with a stern expression. 

The woman tapped on the desk to ask for the attention of the students. ‘’Page 178’’ The woman was old and a few wrinkles had found their place in her face but her voice sounded younger. A moment later they were flipping through the pages until everyone was at the correct page of the book. Tristans attention drifted away as the young wizards and witches started crashing letters on the parchments to keep up with the teachers notes that she was giving to them at a rapid rate. 

The first half of the lessons mostly existed out of theory, the second half out of practice. So the first half every muggle was safe, it was the second half were they, the guinea pigs, stepped in. As Tristans eyes wandered over the class, he met the eyes of one of the students, a green and silver one. A cold shiver ran up Tristans back as he saw the grin of the wizard. That was almost the first lesson he had learned himself, stay away from the greenies. While other students tried to make the least amount of failures, probably only to get their grades higher, the greenies actually seemed to like torturing them whenever they found a possibility to do so. Tristan could only hope that he was lucky today, that it wouldn’t be a greenie and certainly not that one. 

As the second half of the lesson started, Tristan saw the student approaching, still that grin on his face. But before he was close enough, two blues were there already. Tristan sighed relieved, blues weren’t the nicest ones but they were the best. They made the least amount of failures and seemed completely focused on the effect of the spell, not on the effect that it would have on the muggles temper, mood or emotions. Much like the biology teacher of Tristan when the war hadn’t started yet.

The man had disappeared a few weeks after the beginning of a war. He had been determined to seek out the cause of why certain people had magic and why some hadn’t. The village had called him a madman, completely out of his mind to seek contact with these strangers. And it had seemed that they were right, he was never been heard of again. Rumors said that he had been killed when he had gotten too close to a wizards home but because his body never had been found, his true fate was still unknown to everyone.

Tristan looked at the open book on the table, trying to figure out what was going to happen to him. But when he looked at it, it didn’t seem that it was the normal book for this lesson. He remembered this book and it remembered him of the dungeons. There were dirty spots on the book, looking like spilled drinks. Tristan frowned, this was strange for a blue, normally everything was neatly and organized. 

But when he again looked up from the book, he wasn’t in the bright classroom anymore. Here, there weren’t any windows, it was cold and only candles gave a shimmering light in this room. His heart sank in his shoes as he noticed the kettles on the fire and the teacher in front of the class.

This really wasn’t where he wanted to be, the smell of burning wood in his nose. Tristan wanted to run away but it felt like his limbs had turned to stone. He could barely understand anything of the recipe in the book, but he was sure that whatever it might be, it wasn’t meant to do him any good. 

The teacher walked up to the students, glancing into the kettle. It was hard to read the expression on his face, it was almost always one of disdain. It took a while before the teacher looked up again and even Tristan could guess his opinion about the liquid in the kettle. ‘Well, let’s see what happens. Maybe then you will pay more attention to the next time in my class.’’ he said, his voice cold and monotonous. 

Tristan didn’t want to drink it, liquids that had gotten through the teachers approval –and that didn’t happen a lot- were worse enough. But one that almost had been thrown away, just barely good enough, was always a lot worse. His hand was slightly shaking as he raised the cup to his lips. Of course he could have refused to drink, but last time he did that he had been made to drink it either way plus testing every other brewage. One had a better chance of not getting hurt by just having to drink one brewage, in a whole class the chance of getting away unharmed were close to zero. Refusing wasn’t an option, it would only cause him more troubles and harm. 

The moment he drank from it, it seemed like his mouth, throat and stomach were on fire. Tristan dropped the cup and started screaming in pure agony. The class looked up disturbed, a few of the students being startled bad enough that they made mistakes, resulting into things like dropping ingredients in the kettle that shouldn’t be there, high clouds of brightly colored steam erupting from the kettles, filling the entire classroom. Others managed to burn themselves when they heard Tristans screaming, cursing while trying to cool the burn.

But Tristan didn’t stop screaming, he couldn’t stop. It hurt too bad, he clawed at the skin on his throat, wanting to take the pain away. But other than injuring himself it didn’t do much. He didn’t remember falling on the ground, only that he was on the floor at one moment. 

Then Tristan woke up, in the middle of the night, in the room at the wizards house, the sheets of his bed soaked in sweat. He could hear people talking and hasty footsteps in the hallway. It seemed that he hadn’t only woken himself but also others with his screaming. The house had several floors, higher than any house Tristan had lived in but it also seemed necessary if the family truly was as big as the moving pictures suggested. 

After that day, they had left him for a few days. Tristan had thought that they were going to replace him and get rid of him. At that moment it didn’t matter, though the pain had faded away eventually he knew that this wasn’t the first time and that it also wouldn’t be the last time that something like this would happen. When his wounds had healed and he was fit to go back to ‘work’, he was first placed in the easier classes, like the one he had dreamed about before it had turned into a nightmare. Transformations could be humiliating but they rarely hurt you and the teacher didn’t make the students perform the spell on them before they were good enough at it. 

It hadn’t just been a bad dream, it had really happened to Tristan and it also hadn’t been the first time that he had dreamed about it. The teacher had just stood there, looking down at Tristan in contempt. The student had put his hands over his ears to protect them from the screaming. After Tristan had quieted down, still shaking as a leaf on the ground, the teacher had spoken up. ‘’After all these years, you are still not able to brew a simple silencing potion. Instead of a temporary paralysis to his voice, you decide to burn and destroy his vocal cords. I wonder every day why I still show up here to try to teach you something. If you continue this ‘great’ work, you will never get your O.W.L.s’’ The teacher than made the liquids in the kettle disappear. ‘’Wasting fine ingredients’’ he grumbled while walking back to the desk in front of the class. 

Tristan tried to regain normal breathing and getting his heart rate back to normal. That was over now, he wasn’t at Hogwarts anymore. But the nescience of the future was driving him crazy. Till so far nothing bad had happened here to him so far but how long would that take? How long would it take before the pain would start here too? The one rule that had kept him alive for so far had been a very simple one. Trust no wizard or witch. There weren’t any wizards or witches that didn’t try to harm or kill you eventually. They didn’t seem to see Tristan and the others as humans, barely more than an animal. But in the end, they were the beasts! 

The footsteps had gotten closer and the door was opened roughly. By instinct Tristan pulled up the covers a bit higher. The man, which name was Arthur, stood in the door opening, still wearing very old fashioned pajamas. The wand was somehow carrying a white light, lightning the room. Arthur was obviously woken up quite roughly. Tristan wondered if he was going to make him pay for waking him in the middle of the night. Wizards didn’t need any reason to hurt a muggle and if they did had one, they had never passed up one to hurt him. 

But Arthur kept standing there. ‘’Are you okay?’’ he asked. By now the twins too had made it to the door, trying to look into the room. ‘’He’s mad, completely mad’’ one whispered to his brother, just hard enough for Tristan to hear. The other confirmed that by nodding rapidly. ‘’A lunatic. But what did you expect, after all he’s a mu…’’ At that, Arthur pushed the two away roughly. 

Tristan nodded slightly, barely noticeable. The man than closed the door again, shooing the twins back to their beds before the footsteps finally stopped. Tristan let out his breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Were they right? Had he gone mad? Wouldn’t anyone had gone mad in the same position?

Then he shook his head, no there wasn’t anything wrong with him. The wizards, witches, the whole magical community was wrong. They were the ones that started this war. They were the ones that tortured the survivors. They were the ones who were crazy.

Tristan laid back down in his bed but threw the blanket half open to let it dry. He couldn’t sleep however, too startled from his nightmare. He was sure that they would come back if he fell asleep again. And he had enough to think about to stay awake.

He was leaving as soon as possible, he wasn’t going to await until the pain would start. Tristan would keep that much control over his life. His escape might cost him his life but then he had at least tried and the pain would be over then. 

When the first sunrays fell on the floor through the window, the blanket and sheets had dried. Tristan hadn’t slept for the rest of the night, but his escape plan was ready. Now he only had to wait for the right moment.


	7. Bloodnose Nougat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy and Charlie visit their parents and Tristan meets with the twins ambitious candy making plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will try to update every week from now on.  
> Comments are highly appreciated!

There was only a short knock on the front door before two men stumbled into the house, it was raining terribly outside. Tristan was sitting in a corner of the room, being able to see everyone in the room. He had pulled his legs up, tired because of his short night. But he tried not to fall asleep, having to watch the family. Maybe nothing had happened till so far but that couldn’t take very long anymore. When the two figures just waltzed into the room, he had been startled, because he had been slightly dozing off. 

But the two barely even seemed to notice him, for the woman of the family exited the kitchen, greeting the two happily before looking down and frowning, seeing the puddles of water. One of the men greeted her back with the same enthusiasm, the other a bit more formal. 

Tristan wanted to get up, to go back to his room. He had little interest in meeting more wizards. But before he could do that, one of the two turned towards him, a wand in his hand. ‘’It’s freezing mom’’ he said to the woman before pronouncing some kind of spell and waving towards Tristan. 

He flinched, raising his arms to protect himself against whatever kind of spell that was . But when he didn’t feel any pain or anything strange, he lowered them slowly, seeing the two men staring in confusion at him. From the corner of his eye he could see the fireplace had been lit, just a few feet away from him. It hadn’t been a spell against him, but only for the chimney. 

The man who had lit the fire was the first one to regain his speech. ‘’You forgot to introduce me to your classmate, Ron’’ he said to one of the sons, who at the moment was laying lazily on a couch, waiting for the rain to stop. Ron snorted in some kind of attempt at laughter, pushing himself in a more upright position with his arm. ‘’He’s no classmate’’ he replied to the man.

Now the man seemed even more confused but before he could say anything more, the other had already opened his mouth. ‘’Of course that isn’t a classmate of Ron, Charlie. Look at it, it’s obvious that it’s a muggle.’’

‘’Percy!’’ the woman said admonitory. But the man didn’t stop. ‘’I can’t believe that dad actually talked you into taking a muggle into the house. You were already making trouble about getting two owls for Fred and George instead of only one. Like one owl more makes more trouble than a muggle’’ Aha, so the man was another son, how many children did they actually have? It was already a big household but now Tristan found out that there were even more.

He didn’t like the man who was called Percy. He reminded him too much of the wizards at Hogwarts. ‘’That’s enough Percy!’’ a voice growled angrily, Arthur stepped down the last few steps of the stairs, looking quite pissed off. ‘’I thought I had raised you different from that’’ Tristan tried to blend in with the furniture even more. 

But the man didn’t stop. ‘’I can’t believe you have actually done this! If the Ministry finds out that you keep the muggle in your house and how, they will come here and extermin…’’ At that moment, the father got really mad, his face almost matching the color of his hair. ‘’Office, now!’’ he bellowed before turning on his heels and heading for one of the doors at the end of the corridor. 

It was dead silent now that both Percy and Arthur had left the room. The first one to say something was the other man. ‘’What is his name?’’ he asked his family. Molly sighed deeply and irritated, mumbling something about raising kids before heading back to the kitchen. 

‘’He’s not a mute, you can ask him yourself’’ Ron replied. But by then, Tristan was gone. He had returned to his room upstairs. It wasn’t a safe place to hide from the wizards, he had already learned that on his first day here when the twins and Ron had just burst into his room. But it was the safest place in the whole house. He hoped that he would be left alone for this time. 

 

Arthur slammed the door closed behind Percy, standing in his office. It was the one place where he didn’t allow his children to come except if he was really mad at them. If they made one slight mistake while playing, they could destroy years and years of work. All research on muggles. But Percy had made him this angry that he hadn’t want to deal with the problem in front of the rest of the family, especially in front of Tristan.

‘’I really can’t believe you have done this!’’ Percy was the first to continue their argument. ‘’You are willing to put your whole family in danger just to prove the Ministry that they are wrong? You are willing to put Ginny in danger? Maybe Ron and the twins can manage to fight him off if –no, when- he decides to kill you all but she can’t!’’ His voice was raised and it was obvious that he didn’t agree with his father. 

‘’Why would he do that? We feed him and give him a place to stay. He has no reason to harm us!” Arthur snapped back. ‘’Why?! Why?! Because it’s a muggle! The Middle Ages are the example of what they do to us when given the opportunity! They are not harmless as you always wanted us to believe and they are certainly not like us!’’  
The two yelling at each other were even hearable in the living room. Charlie sighed deeply, he could have been expecting this. Percy and dad had been fighting ever since the war had started. The former saying that the Ministry was right and that muggles had to be defeated and controlled, some extreme groups even claimed that the only way to be safe was to exterminate all of the muggles. 

Charlie didn’t know what to think. On one side his dad, who had raised them with the thought that muggles were their equals and very similar to them, that they shouldn’t fight each other and that they could co-exist right next to each other. But on the other side, he had been working with dragons for several years. Some men also claimed that dragons were non-violent creatures with who they could live in peace. Most of those men made it two, maybe three days before being killed by a dragon.

Maybe it was the same case with muggles, they weren’t as violent as dragons but they had already shown how violent they can be in groups, especially against things they didn’t know. Charlie still remembered the newspaper messages about murdered wizard families because the muggles found out about them.

But he couldn’t understand why his father had decided to take a muggle inside of the house. Dragons were beautiful creatures and Charlie liked studying them, just like his father had an obsession for muggles. But Charlie would never even think about taking a dragon inside of the house, it was just way too dangerous. Even a dragon raised by humans just after the egg had hatched was still a threat to every living thing smaller than them.

Tristan had decided that now was the perfect timing to search for things he would need on his escape. He had already nicked a bag that he could use, it was big enough to fit in enough stuff that he would need but not too big that he wouldn’t be able to carry it around for a long time.

He had hidden the bag under his bed, just to be safe, before leaving his room to search for food or something sharp like a knife. It wouldn’t be very useful against a wizard with a wand but if the wizard was unprepared or if he had to cut something, a knife could become his primal survival tool. 

But the moment he stepped out of the room, two redheaded figures blocked his path. Tristan stopped startled, staring right into the eyes of the twins, only inches away from him. Fred and George had big grins on their faces and corned him between the wall and them. Tristan clenched his hands again, maybe they had found out about his escaping plan somehow. 

But what Fred –no George, or was it Fred?- did next was unexpected. ‘’We might have started on the wrong foot. But we want to make it up to you’’ The other nodded and continued. ‘’We’ve got you some candy, like some kind of sorry’’ Tristan didn’t trust them, when he tried to get away by stepping to the left, the twins followed him. And when he moved to the right, his path was still blocked. 

‘’No’’ he growled at the two, trying to push them away. But Tristan soon found his back again against the wall. The two had grabbed their wands, holding them dangerously close to his face. Tristan felt his heartbeat pick up and his breath hitched for a moment. The twins were still smiling nicely at him.

Tristan felt like a trapped animal. The two didn’t actually threatening him with words but the warning was clear. Tristan weighed his choices, eating candy that was most likely disgusting or facing some kind of spell. In the end, he reluctantly agreed with the two. 

One of them grabbed something from his pocket and handed it over to Tristan, the other had a piece of parchment and a writing feather. Tristan frowned, not understanding even the slightest bit. The candy in his hand looked a lot like nougat.

He put it in his mouth and quickly swallowed it, trying not to taste it for it would most likely be beyond disgusting. But the twins didn’t move, they looked at Tristan like he was some kind of strange exotic animal in a zoo. Tristan didn’t understand but was glad that they had at least put their wands away. 

He felt something warm dripping over his lips, when he raised his hand and touched it, he saw that it was blood. And it wasn’t just a few drops, more and more blood came out of his nose. Tristans whole nose, mouth and chin were covered in blood and soon the drops started hitting his clothing too. He sneezed, red dots painting the wooden floor. 

But the blood couldn’t get out of his nose soon enough, Tristan could taste the blood in his mouth and feel the liquid running into his lungs. He started coughing but it didn’t seem to help him a lot. He barely even noticed the twins stopped writing down which they had done just after the first few drops of blood. Tristan was gasping for air, it felt like he was going to drown. He collapsed on the ground.

One of the brothers left running downstairs, the other pointed his wand at Tristan and started uttering curses. Tristan flinched but he couldn’t do much else besides that, he was choking on his own blood and barely able to keep conscious. ‘’Evanesco!’’ A bit of blood disappeared, giving Tristan enough room to gasp for some air but soon the blood returned. He could hear shouting downstairs and some people running on the wood. But that was all he heard before blacking out, the lack of oxygen winning over his will to stay conscious.


End file.
